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Profile

Biography

Lorna McGregor is a Professor of International Human Rights Law in the Law School, and PI and Director of the multi-disciplinary Human Rights, Big Data and Technology Project (HRBDT) funded with £4.7m from the UK Economic and Social Research Council. Her current research focuses on data analytics and new and emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI), and human rights; all forms of detention under international law; access to justice and remedies under international law; and the position and effects of international human rights law within public international law and in dealing with global challenges.
Lorna's research has been funded by the British Academy (Co-Investigator of a Newton Senior Fellowship on The Effects of International Human Rights Law on Public International Law and its Sub-Branches), the ESRC (PI of HRBDT and Co-Investigator on Utilising Big Data in the Practice of Torture Survivors' Rehabilitation) and the Nuffield Foundation (PI on the role of National Human Rights Institutions in Complaints-Handling). Her work has appeared in journals such as the American Journal of International Law, the European Journal of International Law, the International and Comparative Law Quarterly, the Journal of International Criminal Justice and the International Journal of Transitional Justice and has been cited by the UK House of Lords and International Court of Justice. In 2015, Lorna was awarded the Antonio Cassese Prize for International Criminal Law Studies.
Lorna is a Co-Chair of the International Law Association's Study Group on Individual Responsibility in International Law and a Contributing Editor of EJIL Talk!. She was the Director of the Human Rights Centre at the University of Essex for two terms (2013 - 2019) and has held positions as a Commissioner of the British Equality and Human Rights Commission (2015 - 2019) and as a trustee of the AIRE Centre. She was one of the founding co-chairs of the European Society of International Law's Interest Group on Human Rights and between 2012 - 2015, was a co-chair of an expert group of academics and human rights practitioners on the review of the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners the product of which was the 'Essex papers'.
Prior to becoming an academic, Lorna held positions at REDRESS, the International Bar Association, and the International Centre for Ethnic Studies in Sri Lanka. She holds an LL.B (First Class Honours) from Edinburgh Law School and an LL.M. from Harvard Law School, where she was a Kennedy Memorial Trust Scholar and Henigson Fellow. She is admitted as an attorney in New York State.

Qualifications

LLB(Hons)
University of Edinburgh,

LLM
Harvard Law School,

Appointments

University of Essex

Director of the Human Rights Centre,
University of Essex (1/1/2013 - 30/12/2019)

Director and PI of the ESRC Human Rights, Big Data and Technology Project,
University of Essex (1/10/2015 - present)

Previous supervision

Thesis title: Exploring the Applicability and Limitations of International Human Rights Law to the Protection of Transgender Persons: A Case Study on Detention Degree subject: Law Degree type: Doctor of Philosophy Awarded date: 14/5/2018

Joanna Elizabeth Easton

Thesis title: The Impact of Bereaved Family Participation in the Inquest Process in England and Wales Following a Death in Custody Degree subject: Human Rights Degree type: Doctor of Philosophy Awarded date: 23/1/2018

Books (1)

Book chapters (5)

McGregor, L., (2016). International penal law: aligned with or autonomous from international human rights law?. In: Research Handbook on the International Penal System. Edward Elgar Publishing. 1783472162. 9781783472161